Celebrating Calgary's Top 40 under 40

Especially in pandemic times, we need to hear about good people doing great things. Thank goodness for Avenue magazine's annual Top 40 under 40 issue. I got to chat with a few of this year's good peeps. Check them out:

Plastic-Free YYC founders, Isabelle Couture and Briana Loughlin 

Real estate investment guru, Jason Jogia 

Neil Gruninger, developer of one of the safest video-streaming platforms in the world for kids

Racism Matters

One thing I didn't expect to have happen with COVID-19 was the eruption of protests after the death of George Floyd. Though, in hindsight, it was not surprising with the tensions bubbling for decades and near boiling for the past four years. The amount of pain and trauma bursting forward was gut wrenching, to say the least.

The pandemic spurred a lot of reflection as people were forced to sit tight, often alone, with their thoughts. As a BIPOC, racism has never been far from my mind. But the protests suddenly brought it to the forefront of many minds, and the conversations about it were often far from pleasant as even people very close to me revealed just how deep systemic racism runs. 

It's so complex, and we have much work ahead, but I hope this piece I wrote for The Sprawl helps move the conversation forward. 

We need to talk about racism

Racism is a topic that unfortunately I've thought a lot about. It's affected my life as a Chinese-Canadian, and it's something I struggle to make sense of and talk with even the closest of friends. To be honest, it's exhausting trying to continually explain what it is and why it matters. But I know that it is only by having uncomfortable and complicated conversations that we ever make any progress. So here's my piece in Avenue magazine. I hope it generates some complicated conversations for you.